OFFICERS SHOULD FOLLOW THE BOOK

It's not a good idea to take Benadryl and drive. It says so right on the bottle.

May cause marked drowsinessUse caution when driving a motor vehicle or operating machinery.

So if you took a Benadryl, drove erratically, clipped a car or two and behaved in a manner that caused a police officer to say, "You seem to be drunk," all you'd have to do is explain that you'd taken an antihistamine. This would save the officer the trouble of administering a breathalyzer test, and instead of taking you to the slammer, he could go with you to get a little something to eat. And then you could drive home, and that would be the end of it.

As long as you are the police officer's boss, that is.

Frank Boni, who is assistant director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, admits he got special treatment when he was pulled over last week on his way home from a police golf tournament at which he absolutely, positively did not enjoy any alcoholic beverages.

The public service aide who stopped him -- and the other officers who swarmed to the scene after Boni's county tag was called in -- gave him "the benefit of the doubt," he said.

From here, it looks like they also gave him the benefit of a wink and a nudge. No ticket was issued and no report of the incident exists. Police Director Carlos Alvarez, Boni's boss, says he sees nothing wrong with any of this.

So let's spell it out for him:

Someone's car was damaged.

The driver who hit it left the scene. In his county-owned car.

A 21-year-old officer-in-training who had the temerity to pull over that county-owned car got a quick lesson in double standards from his senior officers.

And the credibility of the entire department, all the way up to the top, has been compromised.

Nothing wrong with any of that? It doesn't sound like anyone asked enough questions to make that determination. Nor does it sound like anyone wants to.

Let's assume this was really a medical episode, as Boni says. A reaction to an over-the-counter drug; a "blood sugar incident" caused by spending the day in the hot sun with nothing to eat. It's possible.

But other possibilities come to mind, too, and the prudent thing to do would have been to administer the breathalyzer, if only to silence the cynics who think there's something fishy about a cop giving another cop what looks like a free pass.

Was Boni driving under the influence of an antihistamine, or something else? We'll never know.